Laptops Warning about cheap USB accessories

[greenhorn]

A friend of mine fried the USB power supply chip on his out of warranty laptop when he plugged in a cheap laptop cooler he bought from some small shop here. All his USB ports are dead.

So be careful when you buy laptop coolers of questionable quality. Either buy something good, or if you insist on being cheap ( like I would ) buy one of those mains to USB adaptors and run the coolers off them, instead of the USB ports on your laptop. At least if it goes bust, it wont fry your expensive laptop motherboard

 

[pradeep200417]

Re: Warning about cheap Laptop Coolers

A friend of mine fried the USB power supply chip on his out of warranty laptop when he plugged in a cheap laptop cooler he bought from some small shop here. All his USB ports are dead.

So be careful when you buy laptop coolers of questionable quality. Either buy something good, or if you insist on being cheap ( like I would ) buy one of those mains to USB adaptors and run the coolers off them, instead of the USB ports on your laptop. At least if it goes bust, it wont fry your expensive laptop motherboard

Good Advice. I remember i had bought those cheap USB vacuum cleaner and something similar had happened.

 

[RS4]

Thats scary! Thanks for posting this, even i used to plugin any cheap usb device or usb vacuum cleaner etc without thinking about the consequences.

 

[kauzy]

a USB vacuum cleaner?? :O :O

 

[Metalspree]

a USB vacuum cleaner?? :O :O

USb Vaccum Cleaner

I have one

 

[Party Monger]

More like get them tested at the shop you buy them from...

But you got a point, some of these gadgets juice the usb power to the max..motherboards might easily go kaput..

 

[Tanuj]

I have one cheapo usb vaccum cleaner too, bought from indiaplaza. Never used it.

 

[SledgeHammer]

I've also read similar stories about cheap USB wall chargers.

 

[enigma]

Same goes for cheap bluetooth donglees, some thumb drives and also plugging in USB devices in the front ports of Cheap cabinets.
USB 2.0 is directly powered via 5V line. Bad contact/device = fried motherboard.

 

[sumatrix]

Will it be a prob if we plug some cheapo bluetooth dongles onto desktops??i think dektops can handle the load

 

[FaH33m]

Does this apply to USB card readers as well ? I need a SD card reader real bad but I am scared to buy one of those el-cheapo ones which are the easily only available options for under 200-250 bucks .

 

[techno_guy]

Does this apply to USB card readers as well ? I need a SD card reader real bad but I am scared to buy one of those el-cheapo ones which are the easily only available options for under 200-250 bucks .

get an Amkette one for 150~200 bucks with 1 year warranty

 

[blueren]

Usb vaccuum cleaners? Very lollable. I use this! Although its not a usb driven item

 

[Malique]

@Faheem, card readers are fine. they dont need much juice (rather hardly any). this mainly applies for those devices which use USB to draw power like like USB vaccum cleaners :rofl: or even multi-fan laptop coolers

the el-cheapo ones do their job well, but at times we get read errors for the files we copy thru them.

 

[RS4]

Does this apply to USB card readers as well ? I need a SD card reader real bad but I am scared to buy one of those el-cheapo ones which are the easily only available options for under 200-250 bucks .

You can go for branded USB card readers like iball,amkette etc which cost slightly more than the unbranded ones and you get peace of mind for spending that extra 50-100 bucks.Check out these card readers:

eBay India: Amkette All-in-one USB 2.0 Memory Card Reader + Bill (item 370446139540 end time 21-Oct-2010 20:05:08 IST)

eBay India: Card Reader / Writer Iball 54-In-1 Memory Card Reader (item 250701659776 end time 25-Oct-2010 00:26:51 IST)

eBay India: Iball All-in-1 Memory Card Reader Bill + Warranty (item 120632687124 end time 18-Oct-2010 11:40:13 IST)

eBay India: Memory Card Reader SONY (item 400161012414 end time 18-Oct-2010 23:25:00 IST)

 

[techno_guy]

You can go for branded USB card readers like iball,amkette etc which cost slightly more than the unbranded ones and you get peace of mind for spending that extra 50-100 bucks.Check out these card readers:

eBay India: Amkette All-in-one USB 2.0 Memory Card Reader + Bill (item 370446139540 end time 21-Oct-2010 20:05:08 IST)

eBay India: Card Reader / Writer Iball 54-In-1 Memory Card Reader (item 250701659776 end time 25-Oct-2010 00:26:51 IST)

eBay India: Iball All-in-1 Memory Card Reader Bill + Warranty (item 120632687124 end time 18-Oct-2010 11:40:13 IST)

eBay India: Memory Card Reader SONY (item 400161012414 end time 18-Oct-2010 23:25:00 IST)

Yup the amkette one is the same that I was talking about

I got one from lammy road just for 150 which had MRP of 200 on it

It is at least better that those road ones

 

[vincy24]

Stuff like fans or vacuum cleaners do not actually comply to the USB2.0 standard. Ideally if a decide is a USB standard complaint, the current rating are negotiated with the host and will probably not screw the host controller.

What these accessories do is basically just use the +5V and Ground terminals as power supply. leaving the data pins open and hence the risk.

 

[Lord Nemesis]

Iball is not exactly much of a brand either. Its the same cheap ass Chinese goods with just the iBall label printed on top. There is usually no difference quality wise.

 

[bhupatib]

A word of caution on cheap card readers - they've very low read/write cycle...i've used around 6 of them and they never lasted me more than a month of moderate use...
Don't know about Amkette ones, but other cheap, unknown brands have this issue..

 

[greenhorn]

and their USB cords themselves get damaged!